Getting your organization ahead in the corporate race
In order to be successful, it’s important to know what race you’re actually in
Whether you realize it or not, the race you’re in is quite a competitive one. Your company is up against cutthroat competitors — hot, fast newcomers looking to disrupt your industry, and traditionalists desperate to do whatever it takes to win.
Applying the real estate lens
Let’s put this in the context of real estate. Many companies are looking to JLL to help cut costs, increase utilization of their current space, understand how people use their space, and keep up with never-ending expansion and contraction of different business units. We can help with all of these things. But if these outcomes aren’t aligned to something bigger and a set of strategic goals, actions can possibly hurt more than help.
Just as how an F1 race car is built for performance and not just speed, your real estate portfolio needs to be similar. For instance, cost reduction in real estate keeps many seasoned real estate leaders up at night, but this is the price of entry today, or as the Americans would say, table stakes. However, when the goal of cost reduction is pursued at all costs — where every possible cent has been squeezed from employee amenities, from the office location, from the vendors and support staff, from capital repairs — you are left with an office that essentially is no longer attracting the talent needed to compete. You’ve lost the race before you’ve even begun, and have a long road ahead to become competitive again.
So before making any decisions, take a step back; think about what race you are in. What are the conditions you’re operating in? What’s your business strategy ? What levers do you have to help the performance of your company, and win? How can you focus data, information and your performance metrics towards a single objective of the finish line?
Here are three things to consider:
Race strategy: What differentiates you from your competitors? How does this manifest itself in your real estate strategy?
Identify the finish line: Make sure it’s meaningful to both your CEO and shareholders. Quick litmus test: Would the results make the pages of your company’s annual shareholder or CSR report? Are they essential to decision-making in the C-suite?
A winning team: What has been successful in the past? Will it work for the future? Who needs to be part of the team? Can the team and those around us easily understand or articulate how we will win the race? Remember, it takes a lot of people to get a race car across the finish line — it’s not just about the driver.
